Protesters at gay center won't face felony charges

The San Francisco district attorney's office will not file felony charges against two demonstrators arrested last week during a confrontation with police outside a gay-rights center, authorities said Tuesday.

Jaime Coan, 22, and Zebadyha Lee, 30, were arrested Thursday night on suspicion of lynching, defined as "the taking by means of a riot of any person from the lawful custody of any peace officer."

Coan and Lee could still be charged today with interfering with police officers, a misdemeanor, MacNamara said.

The confrontation with police occurred outside the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center on Market Street and resulted in one protester's being treated at a hospital for a shattered tooth, according to members of a small gay-rights group called Gay Shame.

The group accused officers of using excessive force in disrupting what they called a nonviolent protest outside the center. But police said some demonstrators physically tried to remove people whom officers had arrested.

San Francisco mayoral candidate Gavin Newsom had attended the fund-raiser and at one point was surrounded by protesters, an aide to Newsom said.

The group had shown up at the center to protest what they called Newsom's anti-homeless policies and "blatant pandering to the powerful gay vote."

Two other protesters who were cited and released for resisting arrest will not face charges, authorities said.